Theater Review: The Croods

This was honestly a bit of a surprise. I had absolutely no interest in checking out this film, but my parents visited and decided to take my son (and us) to the movie.

The Croods is about a a family of cavemen led by their father Grug (Nicolas Cage). The cavemen have slowly started to become extinct, thanks to disease, carnivorous beasts, and others.

Grug is very overprotective of his family, which they believe is the reason they have survived while others have died. Eep (Emma Stone), Grug's daughter, is not so excited about having to stay in hiding inside their cave all of the time. So, she begins to push the limits.

Ugga (Catherine Keener) - Grug's wife, Gran (Cloris Leachman) - Ugga's mother, Thunk (Clark Duke) - Grug's son, and Sanday - Grug's other daughter, all follow everything that Grug's says. They love their cave and have no plans to ever go out and explore the world.

Eep, however, sees a glow outside the cave during the night and curiosity gets the best of her. She sneaks out of the cave and follows it - which actually turns out to be fire, something she has never seen before. The creator of the fire, though, is Guy (Ryan Reynolds), another caveman who has been out on his own and has adapted to the harsh world.

After an earthquake crushes their cave and opens up a hidden world to the cavemen, the Croods are forced to try and find a new place to hide - and use Guy as their guide. Along the way, the rest of the family begins to feel that Grug's way of life may not be the best.

I have to admit, even after seeing the trailer a handful of times this movie never really excited me. But, I guess you can't judge a movie by its trailer - because the film as actually pretty decent. Not amazing, but definitely worth seeing.

The scenery in the film was outstanding, with at first mostly brown and boring colors - but blossoming into a rainbow world.

The family itself was also pretty fun. But the funniest character had to be Guy's pet sloth, Belt - who had some great scenes, despite not uttering any real words.

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Theater Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

I have to admit that when I first heard of the reboot I was pretty upset about it. What the heck is the point? The last Spider-Man films were decent, with the last one not being released all that long ago. I really had no intentions of ever seeing this film in the theater - I may have checked it out on DVD.

But, early reviews of word-of-mouth began to get me interested, and the trailer wasn't that horrible. Then, I found myself out of work early one night and decided to give it a chance. Plus, I got to see the movie with just one other person in the entire theater, which was amazing.

The Amazing Spider-Man is a reboot all the way through. What we get here in the first film is another origin story, and if I hadn't already seen this origin story 10 years earlier with Tobey Maguire, I would have been drooling over it.

There is no doubt it my mind, this one is a much better telling of the story. It's darker, but also supplies more humor if you can believe that. When Maguire was announced as Spider-Man I had my doubts, but then I couldn't see anyone else playing him. Now, I see I was wrong again. Andrew Garfield did a marvelous job playing both Spider-Man and Peter Parker.

Though in this first film of what will probably be many, Uncle Ben and Aunt May aren't much of a factor - I am happy that they went out and got some well-known actors for the parts. In the first trilogy the two of them had tons of screen time, and I had no idea who they were. Happy to see both Martin Sheen and Sally Field fill the roles.

Being about the same age as her, I have sort of grown up with Kirsten Dunst and had developed a crush on her at an early age - so I was very happy having her in the original trilogy. However, even I can admit she didn't really do much but complain and get kidnapped. Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy looks like a much better yang to Spider-Man's ying. Already she was given much more to do than Dunst in any of the three films prior. Plus, she just has great screen presence and I liked her chemistry with Garfield.

Denis Leary plays Gwen's father and also happens to be the captain of the police force. He plays a sort of mix of J. Jonah Jameson (in that he feels Spider-Man is a menace to the city and needs to be captured) and Batman's Jim Gordon to Spider-Man.

Finally, we have the villain. With Doc Octopuss, Green Goblin, Sandman and Venom already having screen time in the first trilogy - they went with The Lizard for the big baddy in this film, which as a non-comic book reader I wasn't really that aware of, but looked like a Hulkish character (in that when he is The Lizard, Dr. Connors (Rhys Ifans) really doesn't know what he is doing).

Overall, I really liked the movie. It had everything that a good superhero should have. A good leading man, a decent villain, a solid leading lady and a nice story (which for the most part had already been told). But, I am definitely excited for the films to come - every time a new superhero movie comes out we have to have this origin story and now it's over, but they better have newer and better stories in the films to come.

The Amazing Spider-Man suffered this year mainly due to the fact that it's a superhero film (a reboot nonetheless) that came out during the same summer that The Avengers was released, when we have been building up to it for so many years with its previous films, and the final installation of Christopher Nolan's trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises. So, it already was coming out as the third best superhero film of the summer without even being released.

If you haven't seen it, I'd give it a shot. It has all of the makings of a great new franchise if they are able to make new and exciting stories in the next films that are released.

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18/50x2: Zombieland

This was one of the few films on my list I was apprehensive about watching. I have stated many times my lack of joy for gore-type horror films, but I had heard so many great things about this, including how hilarious it was, and that the gore was somewhat tame. So, I gave it a shot.

And, I am glad I did.

"Columbus" (Jesse Eisenberg) is a college student and one of the few unaffected humans still living in Zombieland, which is what Columbus has affectionately called the planet now. Apparently, a bad strain of mad cow disease has changed most humans into cannibalistic zombies, and Columbus is one of the few fighting to stay human.

He lives his life by a series of rules, like always checking in the back seat, to ensure his survival. He is currently trying to make it back to Columbus, Ohio to see if his parents are still alive or if they have been affected by this as well.

Along the way he runs into "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), who actually seems to enjoy living in this new world. His goal throughout the entire film is to find a Twinkie - and loves killing zombies.

While searching a grocery store for Twinkies, the two stumble across "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and her sister "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin). The sisters appear to be harmless, but it turns out they are con artists and manage to steal the guys' weapons and their car.

Now with no car, the guys manage to find an abandoned Hummer loaded with weapons. Instead of pressing on, Tallahassee sets his mind toward revenge and looks to ambush the two ladies. Yet again the girls outsmart them and take their new car - but Tallahassee is able to wrestle the gun away from Little Rock and a truce is negotiated as the quartet decides to move forward.

Wichita and Little Rock plan to head to 'Pacific Playland' an amusement park that they state is free of zombies. The four arrive and this is where the films climax takes part, and it was glorious.

As I said, these are not usually my cup of tea. But, it actually was. I really enjoyed it and the zombie/gore factor wasn't that bad either.

Harrelson really continues to impress me as an actor. I am glad he is finally back and making solid movies. Eisenberg also impresses here, and I feel the Michael Cera comparisons should probably stop as he has clearly past Cera. Let's be honest, all four of these actors are amazing - really liked Breslin and Stone as well.

This has also opened my eyes a bit and will allow me to watch some films a little out of my comfort zone that may be just a bit gorrier than I expect.

Grade:

Ghosts of Girlfriends Past

I have a question - when did Matthew McConaughey decide to strictly do these romantic comedies?

I mean, he has some quality films in his resume - namely Dazed & Confused and A Time to Kill - not to mention a lesser known film Frailty. But, for every one of those films he makes there seems to be at least three romantic comedies. Is it the southern drawl that brings the ladies in?

Anyway, here he is again in the film Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - which is an updated and modified version of A Christmas Carol.

McConaughey stars as Connor Mead, a high-profile photographer who has become a womanizer and basically modeled his entire existence after his Uncle Wayne (Michael Douglas).

Mead heads back to his uncle's old house as his younger brother, Paul (Breckin Meyer) is getting married to Sandra (Lacey Chabert). One of Sandra's bridesmaids just so happens to be a woman that Mead dated and left - and was also his best friend as a child - Jenny (Jennifer Garner).

As he begins to get those old feelings again for Jenny, he is visited by three separate ghosts a la Ebenezer Scrooge.

For me, it was the ghosts that truly made this film passable. They were extremely funny - especially the ghost of girls past, Allison (Emma Stone). Allison was Mead's first conquest back in high school.

Of course, the rest of the film is rather predictable as we see into Mead's past to find out why exactly he became the way he did. And, is it possible that he can change just like Scrooge did in A Christmas Carol?

Again, most of these films - in different ways - almost always end up telling the same story, so nothing should be a surprise when the ending comes. However, some do end up telling the story in a good way - and like I said, the ghosts definitely made this film somewhat enjoyable, but without them it probably wouldn't have gotten as high of a grade (and no the grade was not planned).

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